O scale high-speed passenger trains do exist...for 2-rail.
They were made by a Japanese firm, Kumata & Co. They were highly detailed models, with a price tag to match. A 16-car Shinkansen would cost you somewhere in the neighborhood of Sixteen Thousand Dollars. And that might even be an understatement.
The biggest thing holding back anyone scratchbuilding a bona-fide modern Asian/European high speed trainset in O scale is the availability of suitable power trucks. If you had those, it would only be a matter of buying an HO scale model, and using a scale ruler to fabricate O scale bodies with styrene and/or sheet brass. That's how I scratchbuilt an Amtrak material-handling boxcar long before MTH existed. The difference being that All-Nation's 2-rail passenger trucks were available to be bought. Power trucks like the ones Third Rail put in their Electroliner and/or RDC, are not. If they did, I probably would have tried my hand at building some of Japan's boxy commuter EMU's
---PCJ
